From the author of

From the author of

Direct Import into Flash MX from Freehand and Fireworks MX

Being a vector-based application, Freehand is ideally suited to performing
some of the industrial-strength tasks that simply can't be accomplished in
Flash MX. A great example of this would be typography. Flash MX's Type
tools are rudimentary when placed up against the typographic tools in Freehand.
Another example is the use of the perspective grid feature of Freehand to give
the proper illusion of perspective. This feature is unavailable in Flash MX.

In this case, the artwork can be prepared in Freehand, the symbols created,
and the entire drawing can be dragged and dropped, imported, or copied and
pasted either onto Flash's main timeline or into a graphic symbol or movie
clip in Flash MX.

When the image moves into Flash MX, you are presented with the Freehand Import
dialog box shown in Figure
12. The choices to be made are fairly intuitive.

Figure 12 The Freehand Import dialog box in Flash MX allows you to choose how
Flash MX treats the artwork.

Another method of importing the Fireworks MX artwork into Flash MX is new to
Fireworks MX. When the symbols are ready for export, don't bother opening
Flash MX from the Start menu (PC) or Dock (Mac). Click the Quick Export button
in the top right corner of the Fireworks MX window. A pop-down menu of Export
choices appears, as shown in Figure
13.

Figure
13 New to Fireworks MX is the Quick Export button with one-click access to many
of the tools in the MX Studio.

Select the Flash pop-down menu and choose Copy. This copies the contents of
the canvas to the clipboard. Select Launch Macromedia Flash to open Flash, and
simply paste the contents of the clipboard into a new movie clip, graphic
symbol, or onto the main timeline.

If you select Export SWF, be aware that you will lose all of the symbols in
the Library and will be unable to edit any of the objects in the SWF. This is
because a .swf file is the final version of the Flash MX file used in a web
page.

The beauty of a symbol in the MX Studio is the ability to create the object
once and then use multiple instances of the symbol in the artwork. The ability
to move the symbols between the various applications in the MX Studio is a huge
productivity boost, and streamlines the graphics production process. As well,
the numerous methods of moving the symbols between the applicationsdrag and
drop, copy and paste, or importallows the designer to work either locally or
remotely with no loss of production time.